Townhouses For Sale in Annex, Old Toronto

Why the Annex has so few townhouses

Developer Simeon Janes laid out the Toronto Annex subdivision in 1886, and it joined the city the following year. The houses that followed were built for the well-off: big brick homes in what became known as the Annex style, mixing Romanesque arches and turrets with Queen Anne details. Architect E. J. Lennox's 1887 house at 37 Madison Avenue set the pattern.

Many of those houses were later split into apartments. In the 1950s and 1960s, some were replaced by mid-rise apartment slabs, and a 1975 height freeze helped stop that. Today hundreds of Annex buildings carry heritage protection.

All of this leaves little room for townhouse development. What does come up is usually an older row, often in Seaton Village, or a unit in one of a handful of small infill complexes.

Seaton Village rows west of Bathurst

Seaton Village joined the city in 1888, a year after the Annex, and its streets are smaller in scale. Rows and semis on narrow lots make it the part of this area where freehold townhouses turn up most often.

Expect the usual inner-city questions: shared roofs, limited parking, laneway access and older basements. The upside is a quieter grid of residential streets close to Bathurst and Christie stations.

Four subway stations and the Bloor bike lane

Bathurst, Spadina, St. George and Dupont stations all serve the Annex, and two of them are transfer points between Line 1 and Line 2. Few neighbourhoods anywhere in Ontario offer that much rapid transit within a short walk.

Bloor Street's cycle tracks make cycling downtown practical, and the university campus is on the southern edge. For owners who give up a car, the Annex is one of the easiest places in the city to do it.

The flip side of all that transit is traffic on the streets near the stations, and student rentals on many blocks close to the university. Neither is a problem for most buyers, but they shape the feel of a street from September to April. Walk a block on a weekday evening during term before you commit.

Yorkville's townhouse side streets

On the east side of the City's Annex boundary, Yorkville agreed to join Toronto in 1883 and keeps some of its small-village street pattern. Between the towers on Bloor and Avenue Road, a few side streets have older rows and newer low-rise townhouse developments, often at the upper end of the downtown market.

Units close to Yorkville Avenue sit near shops, galleries and restaurants, which brings evening foot traffic. One block further in, the streets get quiet quickly.

Many of these townhouses are condominium units with an underground garage, which solves parking but brings a fee and a status certificate. Compare the reserve fund's health across complexes; the age and size of the corporation matter more than the address.

What to check on an Annex row or infill townhouse

• Heritage status of the property and the street, which affects windows, porches and additions.
• Whether a converted house is legally a single dwelling or registered multi-unit building.
• For infill condo towns, the age of the complex and its reserve fund plan.
• Laneway access, which varies from street to street.